This article is aimed at helping you with the first time installation of NopCommerce on your local machine (not web host). NopCommerce is an open source eCommerce solution written in asp.net and is available for free download and use.

I just download the latest version i.e. NopCommerce 1.90 and struggled a bit to install it on local machine for testing before uploading on web host cloud. But I was able to make my way after some searching and hit and trials.

The steps are pretty simple but if you don't know know the pre-requisites, you may end up spending hours before you actually see the solution running.

Pre-requisites:

You can find the software requirements here at NopCommerce site.

My environment:
Visual Studio Express 2010. New releases won't not work in Visual studio 2008.
SQL Server Express 2005.
ASP.net 4.0
IIS 7
Windows Vista SP1
NopCommerce v 1.90 (Source)

Step by Step Install

1. Download latest version of NopCommerce from here.
   Since, my aim was to play with NopCommerce code and modify it if required, I downloaded the source code version. If you don't want to modify any code, you should download the No Source version.
2. After the download, you will get a zip file. Unzip it.
3. • If you are using Visual Studio to install and use NopCommerce, then follow these steps:
     
     1. Open Visual Studio Express 2010. Click File->Open website->Select NopCommerceStore folder from the unzipped package in step above.
        

     2. Go to Install folder in the visual studio and right click install.aspx file. select 'set as start page' here.

     3. Now press F5 key. This will build the whole website solution in debug mode and launch the install/install.aspx page for initial database creation.
        Please note that you should not modify the connectionstrings.config file on your own to specify the DB connection string. I made this mistake thinking that DB should already created and a connection string should be specified in this file before first run, but it is not the case. NopCommerce install scripts do everything on their own.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   • If you don't want to use visual studio and directly want to install and use NopCommerce using IIS7, then follow these steps:
     
     1. Go to start->run. Write inetmgr and press enter key. This launches your IIS (Internet Information Server) manager.
     2. Right click the 'Sites'->'Add web site'
        
        A pop up comes up. Specify a name for this website to be identified in IIS.
        Select the physical path of the website as the 'NopcommerceStore' from the unzipped folder.
        Specify any empty port on your system. Be default, it will come up as 80. Save.
        Open any browser and type this address localhost:80/install/install.aspx
        
4. You will now see this page in browser.
   Select 'Install NopCommerce' here and click next.
   
   
5. Specify the SQL server name here. If you have installed SQLExpress, the server name should be as highlighted in image unless you have specified something else at the time of installation. Note that you should specify the full name here i.e. .\SQLEXPRESS including the dot and backslash.
   
   Specify any user name password for SQL server access if you have specified anything. If not, then it should be windows authentication by default. Click next.
   
   
6. Specify a database name. I used AM22Tech. Check the 'Create Sample Data' if you want to input some sample data from NopCommerce. This can be deleted later if you don't want. Click next. This will install a new NopCommerce DB schema (tables , procedures etc.)
   
   
7. This step shows you the default admin user and password. You can also change it here as per your preference. Now click the link 'Go to Site'.
8. You will now see the NopCommerce home page after a while (First time rendering takes some time. Approx. 2 minutes). This page shows the home page with sample data. Your NopCommerce installation is done. You can now log in with the admin user name and password which you specified above and manage your eCommerce website.